Kelly Tatera has spent her life on the road. She has lived in a myriad of countries — Canada, Romania, Poland, France and Switzerland — and always felt she had a calling to travel.

The adventurous junior magazine journalism major has used tattoos as a creative outlet to embrace her soul and express the realizations she has gained as a seasoned traveler.

“I consider myself to be a very worldly person and very open-minded and accepting of all other cultures and kinds of people,” said Tatera, who is also a contributing writer for The Daily Orange.

The first tattoo she got was on the inside of her bottom lip and says “IDGAF,” an acronym for the saying “I don’t give a f*ck.” Tatera recalls the experience being surprisingly short and relatively painless.

“It kind of got me over the fear that tattoos would really hurt a lot and made me want to get more,” she said.

Her second piece, a vividly colored scorpion with butterfly wings placed on her left shoulder, represents her zodiac sign, Scorpio, which tends to hold dark undertones. The wings supply contrast, balancing the scorpion with a lighter element. That tattoo holds the idea that one must “transform herself to get out of dark places,” as Tatera described it.

This past summer, Tatera spent six weeks studying in Madrid, immersed in new experiences that made her want to continue her explorations indefinitely. She also spent 10 days in Africa.

“I basically am just a travel junkie and want to see the world — like anywhere in the world that I haven’t been,” Tatera said. “I’d love to travel and meet the people there and see what life there is like.”

She got her most recent tattoo done in Syracuse at Carmelo’s Ink City, and she said it was inspired by last summer’s adventures. It’s a map of the world, laid out across the top of her left foot.

She felt this one more than her first two. Feet, along with ribs and hands, tend to be the most painful places for tattoos. Besides being incredibly bony areas, it is easy to strike a nerve in these places.

“It was definitely the most painful tattoo out of all of them,” she said.

The owner of three pieces, and hoping to get more in the future, Tatera said she sees tattoo culture as something that’s becoming “a lot less stigmatized.” She noticed that the Syracuse University campus, heavy with tattoo-bearing students, seems to perceive ink as being more artistic, unlike the rebellious connotations it has historically held.

“Tattoos are a way for people to express themselves,” Tatera said. “It’s their body, so they should be able to mark it any way they want without fear of not getting a job or getting looked down upon by people.”

Published on November 5, 2013 at 12:32 am

Contact Naomi: ncfalk@syr.edu